Originally, however, the ship that became the Tolstoy was scripted as the "USS Chekhov". [4] A Springfield-class filming model with the name USS Chekov was in fact seen on screen. A last minute post-production change resulted in Chekov being replaced with Tolstoy in the dialogue, as to avoid a reference to the original series character Pavel Chekov, deemed too "cute" for the moment in TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II". The Tolstoy's designation as "Rigel-class" was a later invention by Michael Okuda for an internal list of starships. At the time of filming of the episode the class designation was not in use as he remembered, "Rigel: I don't think we ever came up with a ship design specifically tied to that name." [5]

The depiction of the battle in "Emissary" was originally filmed as a much more elaborate scene than it became. DS9's visual effects supervisor Robert Legato assigned the Tolstoy name to a starship wreck, that was removed from the aired version of the scene. He recalled in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion: "I made sure that all of the debris had the correct names on it, the names of the ships that were mentioned in 'The Best of Both Worlds', the starships Tolstoy, Kyushu, Melbourne, and Saratoga were among those described as lost in the battle, so the episodes would tie together."